If the God of Abraham were real, why would he chose one of the most illiterate and uninformed periods of time to reveal himself and constantly perform his miracles? I mean he parts the Red Sea for Moses... but since everyone travels by foot and most of Moses' followers can't read, write, and are legally retarded, God then has to perform another huge miracle for the next handful of people to believe in him.

Whereas today, we are so connected and bored and socially informed that we can know what Lindsay Lohan had for breakfast before the toast has cooled (she was having toast and cocaine). We can verify the validity of aforementioned toast because she Twittered it a few seconds ago. And Frank (her cook... she needed a cook for her toast) changed his Facebook status to "Making toast for Lindsay this morning" at 10 o'clock. Then he captured the arrival of the toast popping from the toaster with his Droid and uploaded it to youtube so we all can witness and confirm it.

The point is, all we would need is a single miracle in this high speed 21st century and the world would be convinced beyond any doubts. But instead the best we get is "a building collapsed and 109 were killed... but a baby survived unharmed."

"Ain't got no last words to say, yellow streak right up my spine. The gun in my mouth was real and the taste blew my mind."

"We see you cry. We turn your head. Then we slap your face. We see you try. We see you fail. Some things never change."

I agree. It seems odd that God would supposedly give direct evidence of himself to primitive people and yet at best indirect evidence of himself to the people who can understand and comprehend his nature and the events he influences.

"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason and intellect has intended us to forego their use." - Galileo

It should be clearly obvious that a god capable of creating billions of galaxies containing billions of solar systems (each) would be concerned with ONLY a handful of people on just one of hundreds of trillions of planets (all of them different) that he managed to create in a space of six days.

I mean, a power that can create a universe so vast and complex that it would take triillions of years at a million miles an hour just to cross it once, can't possibly be able to inform the ENTIRE population of just ONE of those hundreds of trillions of planets that he exists and that it is ESSENTIAL for them to worship him without question for every breathing moment of their lives without the slightest bit of doubt entering their minds.

I mean, how could an entity so weak actually inform more than a few people of his presence in the very universe he created? Clearly that would be outside of his reach. Obviously he would only be capable of informing a small handful of those people (the most illiterate ones he could find) and sit back and allow them to convince the rest of the galaxy of his presence.

Meanwhile, anyone who does not accept the claims of that tiny handful of illiterate goat herders gets to burn in the hell he created for eternity. Which is perfectly just, since God did everything he could within his power to make his presence known to all those unbelievers.

Yeah, that makes PERFECT sense! I believe in that without question! How could I possibly have any doubt? Why would it even cross my mind to wonder why the supreme creator of everything could completely fuck up the job of just providing irrefutable proof that he exists?

Quote:...a universe so vast and complex that it would take triillions of years at a million miles an hour just to cross it once...

Dude. That's far out, man. Between this gem and the video with the star that would take 1 100 years to fly around, my mind is officially blown. For real, thinking about this stuff is better than crack.

Well, the old testament god is really jealous. If you want to look at what would happen if he performed a miracle in the modern time, there would be cynics debunking it and proving that it wasn't anything big. Back with the early civilizations he could do most anything and everyone would cheer. It would take a lot more nowadays. Remember that all the really awesome miracles are done in private in the bible. Only the more discernible ones happen with everyone present.

If we're working in the context of the old testament, this species is the reason for everything. So, he's supposed to be focused on us no matter how big the universe gets.

I'm not a non believer, I believe in the possibility of anything. I just don't let the actuality of something be determined by a 3rd party.

" If you want to look at what would happen if he performed a miracle in the modern time, there would be cynics debunking it and proving that it wasn't anything big. Back with the early civilizations he could do most anything and everyone would cheer."

I disagree. Cynics can only debunk stuff that is not true. If let's say Jesus appeared on the royal wedding of William, and threw cars in the air, and flied and performed miracles in live, no one could doubt that he is the son of God. In this era God has munch more possibility to prove his existence than he had back in the time of Abraham.

..."we can be truly free - not because we can rebel against the the tyranny of the selfish replicators but because we know that there is no one to rebel."
Susan Blackmore : The Meme Machine

If he appeared and started flinging cars around there would be gunfire. I agree that doing something spectacular could better prove things now, but from the bible the miracles generally don't sound that impressive. They were impressive feets at the time which generally could happen naturally. The healing would have a good chance, but there will be cynics. A disaster being caused would no longer be called a miracle.

And I could doubt perfectly fine that a being that comes and disrupts the royal wedding, followed by flying off and healing some people is anything good for the world. I for one don't really care what abilities one might posses if you're using them for purposes I disagree with I'm not going to respect them. A being with more advanced capabilities is not going to win my respect by committing senseless acts. Nowadays even if Jesus returned and healed all the sick, people would be wondering "why now?". Not everyone, but there would be skeptics who just couldn't accept the long period of nothing followed by an instantaneous change.

I'm not a non believer, I believe in the possibility of anything. I just don't let the actuality of something be determined by a 3rd party.

Any sufficiently advanced technology appears to be magic to the more primitive mind. If someone started performing "supernatural" acts and claimed to be a god or the son of god I would remain skeptical until actual evidence of this can be obtained. I would be skeptical of these "powers" until they can be demonstrated to be real "powers" and not just technology.

(23-04-2011 07:01 AM)Lilith Pride Wrote: If he appeared and started flinging cars around there would be gunfire. I agree that doing something spectacular could better prove things now, but from the bible the miracles generally don't sound that impressive. They were impressive feets at the time which generally could happen naturally. The healing would have a good chance, but there will be cynics. A disaster being caused would no longer be called a miracle.

And I could doubt perfectly fine that a being that comes and disrupts the royal wedding, followed by flying off and healing some people is anything good for the world. I for one don't really care what abilities one might posses if you're using them for purposes I disagree with I'm not going to respect them. A being with more advanced capabilities is not going to win my respect by committing senseless acts. Nowadays even if Jesus returned and healed all the sick, people would be wondering "why now?". Not everyone, but there would be skeptics who just couldn't accept the long period of nothing followed by an instantaneous change.

Of course, he wouldn't have to do harmful and useless stuff, I just wanted to point out that in this age it is far easier to prove a "true miracle" than it was 2000 years ago. Information spreads so quickly and widely, that soon everyone would know about the miracle-performing. Than I guess a skeptic/scientist group would pick up the case, and examine the powers of Jesus (or any other never-to-come messiah), in observed environment, and -in this hypothetical case- would announce that his powers are real.

Of course it wouldn't be "supernatural". Supernatural is by definition impossible, regarding that "nature" is the entire universe(s) and everything it contains. This definition doesn't allow any supernatural. If someone could really heal by a touch, it wouldn't be supernatural, maybe we wouldn't understand or reproduce it, yet it would be just as natural as for example gravity.

..."we can be truly free - not because we can rebel against the the tyranny of the selfish replicators but because we know that there is no one to rebel."
Susan Blackmore : The Meme Machine